Report: Chicago Bears DE Willie Young Suffered Torn Achilles

Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

It’s going to be a long offseason for Chicago Bears defensive end Willie Young.  If you’ve gotten to know Young at all in his first season with the Bears, you know that Young loves to go fishing but rather than fishing, Young will most likely be rehabbing after reportedly suffering a torn Achilles tendon on a non-contact play early in the second half of the Bears 20-14 loss to the Detroit Lions.

It’s a really tough break for one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal Bears season.  Willie Young finishes his 2014 Bears season with a team-leading 10 sacks after signing a free agent deal this offseason.

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The Achilles tear is usually a 4-6 month injury.  The surgery is fairly routine, but the biggest challenge with the rehab is the muscle atrophy that takes place.  A lot of time will be spent building back the leg muscles to get the burst back.  He’ll certainly miss the entire offseason program, where there’s likely to be a new coaching staff and a new scheme to learn.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Young is on the PUP list at the start of training camp.  It’s also not crazy to think that Lamarr Houston will also be on the shelf to start training camp as he recovers from the ACL he tore foolishly celebrating a sack of the Patriots backup quarterback in a blowout loss.  To add to that, don’t be shocked if Jared Allen is sent packing before his roster bonus kicks in in March.  In fact, it’s possible the Bears keep Allen just to have a known commodity at defensive end as their other veterans heal up.

When you sum it all up, the Bears are suddenly even more desperate than they were before for help at Defensive End if they stick with the 4-3 or if they blow it all up and consider switching to a 3-4 defense.  There are some notable free agents including Jason Pierre-Paul and Jerry Hughes or wife beater Greg Hardy, but do we really want to overpay again?  It’s more likely that whoever is running the Bears in 2015 will look to the draft to rebuild the Bears defensive line. Again.  The Bears are currently positioned to take the 7th player off the board in the NFL Draft that comes to Chicago for the first time ever in late April.